November 10, 2014
Luodong
Exploring the cycle paths of Yilan County
We don't do that much wet weather touring, and we've been amazingly lucky with weather in the past few years. It's made me a bit sloppy, and today we're paying for it. This morning, most of our gear is still damp, or worse. My load in particular is in bad shape - it was parked poorly at our Pinglin lunch stop yesterday and slipped over while we were eating to an exposed position that funneled in runoff from the canopy above. I think there must have been standing water in the bottom of my bag and leakage into some of the plastic bags everything was wrapped in. The worst damage was to poor Rachael's tablet - if it doesn't improve she'll be reduced to using her cell phone as a reader for the rest of the tour. Preparing for today's ride we packed things away by condition, segregating the wettest from the more fortunate and planning to continue drying things out tonight.
Our hostess gave us a great sendoff from our inn this morning - a good breakfast, sympathetic help brushing off our muddy panniers, a map of the cycle paths of Yilan County, and a trip up to the roof for a 360 view of the surrounding countryside. It is much more attractive and interesting when you can see into the distance. It is still overcast but dry and unthreatening when we give thanks and say our goodbyes (mostly by pantomime - we know pathetically few words of Chinese) and roll out.
Luodong, our destination for the day, is only about 15 miles down the road. We took some comfort last night knowing that we could take the direct route if it was still raining today. Since it's dry though, we planned to wander around a bit and see more of the county. Yilan County consists largely of the pancake flat alluvial plain formed by Lanyang River and several smaller rivers that come together near the mouth. The county has an impressive network of paved seaside and riverside cycle paths, and would have worked well as a several day stayover with time to check them all out.
Leaving the hotel, we passed back through Toucheng and then picked up the seaside cycle way, a great path that hugs the coast and has nice views over the Pacific. We followed it to its end at the mouth of the Lanyang, and then doubled back up the small Yilan River, cycling part of the way along the top of the dike so we could enjoy views out over the flats on either side.
We stopped for lunch at a small diner in Yilan City. We took awhile deciding on where to eat (I'm still working past my cultural intimidation and hesitant to stop in many inviting looking places because I can't read anything - I'll just have to get over it unless we want to live out of 7-11's the whole time). We finally ended up in a very friendly small diner and enjoyed beef filled ciabatta rolls and delicious coffee.
A few umbrellas started popping up while we ate, and a light mist broke out. We decided to beeline to Luodong after lunch in case it turned into a real rain, but it never amounted to anything. Once in Luodong we stopped at the train station to pick up our tickets for the morning train to Taroko Gorge - I had purchased vouchers for them over the Internet before we left home and wanted to be sure I could redeem them without feeling time pressured. I was pleased to find the station easy to manage (that is, they spoke English) and to be assured that we could load our bikes on with us as long as we had bags for them.
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Next, we spent another hour or so riding the cycle paths along the Dongshan, another small river that empties into the mouth of the Lanyang. This was another great ride - lovely riverside scenery, great birdlife. We cycled along one bank to the mouth of the river, and then crossed over and rode back on the other.
We ended our day at Delise's House, a small, lovely B&B near the Dongshan river park. Delise is a warm, welcoming host and we greatly enjoyed our stay here. At dinner time, she generously walked us a few blocks away to a nearby steakhouse and introduced us to the staff so they would take good care of us.
Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 130 miles (209 km)
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